i'm a sketchy fellow

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I use to draw everywhere I went. At restaurants I'd scribble on napkins and place mats.  After Gina and I got married she insisted that I carry a sketchbook with me and she kept me supplied.  She said that the sketch books were hers and not mine.  She had been collecting the table scraps of drawings since we'd started dating.  She had acquired a suit case full of David doodling until she had the bright idea.

I either carried the sketchbook with me or she brought it along.  She'd scold me if I ever doodled on a napkin.  I would from time to time.  I like the texture of napkins, how the ink bleeds into the porous texture.  I don't care for ballpoint pens.  The pens I'd use would bleed a bit on napkins, so you couldn't keep the tip on the surface for long.  Now that we've been married for 23 years, she doesn't collect the drawings as much or insist that I carry a sketch book with me.

Nothing in my books are seriously drawn.  I make mistakes, I screw up, I often succeed. I've been a graphic designer for 30+ years and the things sketched in my books were all done for my own enjoyment and for no one else. I rarely start out with a pencil, so I'm drawing without a net.  If I screw up, I screw up.

As the kids came along, I started leaving my book behind.  For a while I'd tried to take a sketchbook along, but when you're a new dad, you have to take on the role of human pack animal.  You have to carry diaper bags, strollers, cribs, etc.  I just got out of the habit of taking something to draw on.  Sometimes I remember and I'll take one along.  My kids are bigger now and so I'm no longer a pack animal.  I really should be carrying along a  sketchbook where ever I go.

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